Xiaoyu is 4 years old this year, as long as he goes out, he must hold his mother's hand; When encountering strangers, he always hid behind his mother; Sometimes, when his mother wants to leave for a while, he will be particularly nervous, crying and shouting not to let his mother go.
Mom was confused: why Xiaoting next door was only 3 years old, she could already run all over the street, and sometimes she would visit the door and buy things by herself. And his son is 4 years old, why can't he leave her for a moment?
In Baidu Encyclopedia, the explanation for dependence is: relying on others or things and not being able to stand or support yourself. The reason why people have a penchant for tobacco, alcohol, tea, and coffee in their daily lives is that people have become dependent on these substances.
"Everyone has the need and desire to depend on, and they all want stronger and more powerful people to care about themselves." M. Scott Pike, a famous American author, M.D., and master of psychotherapy, said in the book "The Road That Few People Walk": "No matter how strong we look, and no matter how much effort we spend, we try to make the appearance of not caring, but from the bottom of our hearts, we all crave the feeling of dependence on others."
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > dependence is a normal psychological need</h1>
It is a normal psychological need for children to rely on their parents. There is a term in psychology called "attachment", which mainly refers to a special emotional relationship between young children and their caregivers, generally between parents, which is an emotional connection.
Shan Tingting said in her book "Psychology of Children's Microbehavioral behavior": Children's dependence is often closely related to the family environment and family education. The author also said that insecure children will rely on their parents everywhere, and everything they do has different degrees of anxiety. Children with a sense of security are completely different, they are confident, independent and friendly.
Maslow needs
Have you heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? This is the famous American social psychologist Abraham. Maslow proposed, in his 1943 paper "Human Motivation Theory", divided human needs into five levels from low to high like a ladder, namely: physiological needs, security needs, social needs, respect needs, and self-actualization needs.
He said that physiological needs are the lowest and most basic needs of human beings, including water, food, sleep, sex and other content, only when physiological needs are met, people will pursue higher levels of needs. After meeting basic physiological needs, humans rise to the quest for security.
Baidu said: Security is the psychological need to desire stability and security; it is a feeling, a psychology; it is the feeling brought by the performance of one party to the other; it is a feeling brought by the speech and behavior that people can be assured, comfortable, reliable, and trustworthy.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="11" > over-dependence is a pathological relationship</h1>
Although dependence is a normal phenomenon, if it develops to excessive dependence, it is an unhealthy relationship. Obviously, Xiaoyu's performance that cannot be separated from her mother for a moment is unhealthy and over-dependent.
After communicating with Xiaoyu's mother, she learned that when Xiaoyu was more than two years old, Xiaoyu's mother and father went to the city to do business and left Xiaoyu to be taken care of by her grandparents. At that time, in order to avoid Xiaoyu crying, his parents secretly drove away. Half a year ago, the family's business was on the right track, dad hired a few full-time workers, and mom took Xiaoyu back to her side.
Back to his mother's side, Xiao Yu can't do anything without his mother: when his mother cooks, Xiao Yu is like a small tail and grabs the corner of his mother's clothes and follows her; wherever his mother goes, he follows; even when his mother goes to the toilet, he has to follow; he is eager to pestering his mother for 24 hours.
A child who pesters his mother
Xiao Yu's excessive dependence on his mother was obviously caused by his mother's non-farewell last time, and his sense of trust in his mother was destroyed, afraid that his mother would suddenly disappear; afraid of being abandoned by his mother again. Xiaoyu's manifestation is a serious insecurity.
Insecurity also has the following characteristics: thinking that everything is dangerous, "evil", and feeling that the world is unfair or dangerous.
For example, Hao Hao, who was bullied by his classmates at school last time, went to report to the teacher, and the teacher said: "If you don't mess with him, how can he mess with you?" Hao Hao was treated unfairly by his teachers, and from then on, he began to become distrustful of his classmates, did not believe in teachers, became afraid to express himself, did not dare to interact with his classmates normally, because he thought it was dangerous, and if he was older, he might become distrustful of this society. This is also a manifestation of insecurity.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="18" > overprotective or coddling can lead to dependence</h1>
Last year, there was a very popular variety show - "My Family's That Kid", which mainly told the daily life of male artists living alone. Zhu Yuchen's mother's remarks on the variety show have made it a hot topic on the Internet. Zhu's mother, who is 70 years old, takes care of her son's diet and living every day, gets up at three or four o'clock in the morning to make lunch for her son, and boils pear juice for 10 years.
Zhu Yuchen's mother
"My aim is that wherever my son goes, I will give my son a warm kitchen, and I will top two Filipino maids in the house." These are mom's exact words. In the program, Zhu Yuchen invited friends to come to the house, and he had a table of dishes at hand, quite a chef style. When the audience marveled at Zhu Yuchen's cooking skills, Zhu's mother directly poked through the illusion: "It's all semi-finished products!" So after the program was broadcast, Zhu Yuchen was once complained about the poor ability to take care of himself.
Julie Lythcott-Haims, director of freshman life at Stanford University and an expert in education, mentioned in "How to Raise an Adult" that when she was the director of freshman at Stanford University, she found that there were more and more new students with impeccable grades and theoretical learning, and their self-care ability was very poor.
……
Obviously, parents have too high expectations for their children, solve problems for him when they encounter them, and even take care of everything, which will lead to the lack of autonomy of children. Once the child is free from the protection and guidance of his parents, he will lack confidence and can only rely on his parents when he encounters problems.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="24" > the company of infant mothers and can improve the child's sense of security</h1>
There was a very famous macaque experiment: in 1959, the American psychologist Harlow and his colleagues chose a newborn rhesus monkey for experiments. Rhesus monkeys have 94% of the same genes as humans, and their response to external stimuli is very similar to or similar to that of humans.
The experiment went something like this: The baby monkey was separated from its mother from day one and spent the next 165 days with two mothers—one with wire and one with flannel. Wire Mom has a bottle hanging from her chest and provides milk 24 hours a day. The cloth mom is soft and comfortable to touch.
Wire Mom experiment with Flannel Mom
Although baby monkeys can drink milk when they are with their wire mothers, they often prefer not to drink milk than to stay with the flannel mother. Harlow concludes that physical contact affects baby monkeys even more than breastfeeding—they only go to the wire mother when there is a dietary need, and most of the rest of the time they snuggle up with the flannel mother. Although the subjects of this experiment were monkeys, many psychologists believe that it is equally applicable to human infants.
The study also found that the young monkeys who were taken away from the monkey mother had a cold personality in adulthood, did not like to live in groups, and did not get close to other kinds. This shows that warm skin affection, gentleness and verbal communication are indispensable for the growth of young life.
Through this incident, we can know that the importance of parental companionship to the growth of children is self-evident, and parents should accompany their children more and pay attention to the time with their children.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="30" > cultivate a child's sense of security and needs respect and encouragement</h1>
Tingting has dance lessons every Friday night, because from the end of school to the dance class, there is only an interval of less than an hour. She told me, "When I come back from school, I'll read books and practice my words, and then I'll do my written homework after the dance class." I said, "Okay, you decide for yourself"! She decided happily that after the dance class returned, she was really serious about writing her homework.
Encouraging your child to make his or her own decisions and respecting his/her decisions can stimulate your child's ability to think and increase confidence.
In addition, we can also leave some small things in daily life to children.
Sometimes I'm cooking and I find that there are no eggs or soy sauce, and I will ask Tingting for help, and she will gladly accept. I sincerely thanked her for helping me buy eggs and soy sauce and let me cook on time. She felt a special sense of accomplishment because she helped her mother.
Parents love their children, love needs companionship, love needs respect, love needs understanding, love needs encouragement... With these, the child is no longer dependent and the sense of security is multiplied.
Children with a sense of security are more confident
However, we are also parents for the first time, and we are not born to get along well with our children. Parents also need to learn and grow. Whether it is "non-violent communication", "positive discipline", or "PET parent effectiveness training", we all attach importance to equal and respectful communication with children.